Microsoft Family Safety snags new features for desktop, mobile and Windows Store

Prior to Windows 8, Family Safety was a program on the operating system that allowed you to set per account limitations relating to system and Internet access.

After Windows 8 was released all of that functionality was moved off the local desktop and placed under the main Microsoft Account management page via the web.

In the transition some of those desktop capabilities were lost but a parent could still control several elements of any children accounts that have been established under their primary Microsoft Account.

Microsoft has announced a new batch of features for their web based Family Safety program as they continue to introduce improvements to both desktop and mobile capabilities.

They detailed these updates in an email to users of Family Safety earlier today:

On the mobile side, when your child sets up an account on a device running Windows 10 Mobile, the following capabilities will be possible:

Finally, the ever growing Windows Store is now family friendlier and allows you the ability to manage the following options for each child account:

You can read more about these features at the Family Safety FAQ page.

I used some monitoring tools when my daughter was a teenager back in the 90s although at the time all of the options were only from third party developers.

Do you use monitoring tools like Microsoft's Family Safety to help control and limit your child's access to the Internet and other activities?

Let us know why, or why not, in the comments below.

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